When shooting nearly the same types of portraits, in the same locations, etc.  It can start to get boring fast, well for me at least.  A friend of mine had someone who wanted to do a photo shoot of a car, and a badass one too!  So he reached out to me and asked if I was interested and whether I had shot cars before....hell yeah I was interested! But the problem was, I never did a photo shoot of a car before, let alone an exotic one!! It’s a 1965 Cobra ERA, this is a thing of beauty, had not one straight line, it was all curves!

Excitement quickly turned into anxiety.  I mean I can move a live model, direct them - turn here, head tilted, hands this way, etc.  Now with a car, it doesn't work that way.  Having someone get into the car, turn it this way, no that doesn't work, get back into the car, slightly this way...ok now shoot. 

I had my work cut out for me big time.  I was online researching everything from the best time of day for shooting, where the sun should be (never behind you when shooting the car), the right lenses, CIRCULAR POLARIZER FILTER!! I never owned one of those!!!

For the better part of a month, I would do tests by photographing my car, outside, at different times of the day, different angles, etc.  I was ready……I thought.

All week the weather was looking rainy and cloudy and the day of the shoot, you guessed it, not a cloud in the sky and sunny all day!  It couldn't have been a worse day to shoot (OK pouring rain) - harsh bright sun! I was up early too, but I could not get a decent shot...harsh light was everywhere.  So I had to start the shoot indoors.

Luckily this is where I was a bit more comfortable, controlling my light in doors. A lot had to be done just to get to this point. We had to move like six exotic cars, making sure they were nowhere near anything that could scratch/dent the cars. It would have been a disaster and very expensive to repair. Custom professional paint jobs are well over $10k; not the type of money I have.

Anyway, I used three different lights for this shoot. I had a Profoto B1 close to the floor with a zoom reflector pointing at the front grill of the car. Second Profoto was above and pointing at the top hood of the car and lights and the third Profoto was lighting the back right of the car. To trigger all these lights, I was using the Profoto Air Remote...just to dial in the power from the top of your camera is worth every penny for these lights!!…Oh and I tether to my computer.

Below is the end result with the lighting setup.

It was time to go back outside, we had a patch of clouds rolling in later in the afternoon and I couldn’t have been happier. We drove up and down a long road, to the left and right stores, warehouses, and this badass old gas station. So we pulled in and it was a prime spot for the photo below. I used one light for the front of the car

This was a great shoot, I had a blast! But it did have its issues and concerns. For one, I never took photos of a car, let alone a badass Cobra! I took on something that was totally new, a subject that was not responsive, until you physically moved it, different lighting, outdoors (usually I’m in the studio).  But this did not change my attitude or the way I prepare for shoots, well this one did a bit, I was super focused, determined and just excited to get out of my comfort zone and try to do something different.

Was there a chance that this could have gone completely wrong? Definitely!! Was there a chance the client would hate the photos? Of course!  When I say get out of your comfort zone, I mean step out, try something new, be it a car shoot, fashion, real estate, something, anything!

For me I have to do things like this. The fear sometimes drives me, peaks my interest, you never know, you might venture onto something totally different and might change the way you shoot, think and to get that creative fire going again.

Onto the next shoot!

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